The Salina Journal from Salina, Kansas • Page 17

I The Salina Journal BRIEFLY Ho new grocery expected In Salina Albertson's, a supermarket chain, is looking to expand in Kansas, but company officials say Salina is not being eyed. An analysis the company did of the Salina market in the past year showed no room for another supermarket. "There's enough stores there for the amount of available said Mike ReuUng, executive vice president of store planning, from Albertson's headquarters in Boise, 1 Idaho. Albertson's last year bought four Harvest Foods stores in Wichita and is seeking to add a fifth store in that market. A Harvest Foods store in Salina was purchased by Dillon's, which operates four stores in town.

Albertson's wants to expand between Wichita and Omaha, the northernmost city served by its Fort Worth, Texas, distribution center. Albertson's officials have said they 1 are seeking a store location in Man- hattan. Albertson's operates 556 stores in 17 states. Koch to pay fine in deaths of geese Koch Industries has agreed to pay a fine of $1,300 after 14 Canada geese mistook an oil pit for water at the petroleum company at 1100 W. Grand in June and were killed.

The fine was levied by the U.S. Fish and Wildlif Service. Greg Salisbury, wildlife conservation officer for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, said the fine was a plea agreement between the federal 1 agency and Koch Industries. The Canada geese mistook the oil pit, which measaured 100 feet wide by 150 feet long by about 10 feet deep, a pond and landed on it. Actually, the pit was filled with asphalt that ''liquifies when heated.

The sun had melted the surface of the asphalt. Salisbury said Koch spent thou- 'sands of dollars on netting to cover 'the oil pits. Small-business course scheduled JUNCTION four-week course on starting a small business will run Wednesday through Feb. 19 in room 133 of the Junction City High School, Ninth and Eisenhower. The seminar will cover developing a business plan, legal considerations, financial and marketing management, record-keeping, taxes and personal relations.

The course will be taught by Jack Jankovich, instructor in small- business operations at Kansas State University and a counselor with the KSU Small Business Development Center. The cost is $45 and includes class materials. A spouse or partner sharing materials can attend for $25. To register, call the development center at 913-532-5529. Small airplanes to be made in Liberal two-seat training plane will be built in Liberal, creating between 80 and 100 jobs in the first year.

EagleAire said Friday it would move into the former Beech Aircraft building at Liberal Municipal Airport. The company eventually hopes to have 260 workers and produce 235 planes a year, said George Bun-ell, president of Paragon Capital Corp. Paragon is arranging the majority of the funding. The planes will sell for $45,000 to $50,000, Burell said. From Staff and Wire Reports MONEY Classified Page 19 Sunday, January 26, 1992 17 Car dealer fires sales staff; sales improve By The New York ST.

PETERSBURG, Fla. In an industry suffering from'a severe slump, the Swanson- Chrysler-Plymouth car dealership here has found that the best way to improve sales is to get rid of the sales staff, cut the prices and let car buyers shop in peace. No haggling. No pressure. Just a yellow sign on each car's windshield, with a take-it-or- leave-it price.

The strategy, introduced at the start of the year, has yielded 71 sales this month, as of Thursday, compared with 72 for all of January last year. George A. Fischell, the general manager, expects Swanson to sell more than 100 cars this month, the best performance in more than a year but about the volume a midsize dealership like this one normally expects. With expenses down, the month's profits on vehicle sales will be three times those of January 1991. "The concept is fair pricing, fair trade-ins, "The concept is fair pricing, fair trade-ins, and no negotiations.

The response from the public is that it's the greatest thing that has come along in years." George Fischell, dealership manager and no negotiations," Fischell said. "The overwhelming response from the public is just that it's the greatest thing that has come along in years." Fischell pulled invoices that, he said, show the dealer's costs are just $28 to $187 less than the prices on the yellow signs. A Plymouth Voyager minivan costing the dealer $20,616 sells for a Chrysler New Yorker costing $19,330 sells for $19,441, and a Plymouth Sundance costing $9,220 sells for $9,407. But Fischell noted that incentives and bonuses were likely to leave the dealer with wider profits than those figures indicate. The Swanson technique has drawn fire from other auto dealers.

A Dodge dealer across busy Route 19 from Swanson has posted a billboard saying: "We have salesmen to help you. No charge." But Fischell said he had started a business revolution that would' rapidly spread. "After six months, I suspect a third of the dealers in America will be doing this," he said. "I think that we've changed the way cars are being sold forever." The National Automobile Dealers Associ- ation, in McLean, took a more tempered outlook, saying that although Swanson's specific approach may be new, the concept has been around for several years. Allan Wilbur, an association spokesman, said other dealers had developed similar programs, such as selling cars for $49 above the costs on their invoices.

"I think you will find a number of efforts of this type or others, where you will be expert: meriting in marketing automobiles to the pub: lie," he said. But dealers who are experiment? ing with cutting their prices may be forced out of business if they do not make enough sales to cover their costs, he added. Tom Houston, manager of media relations for Chrysler said that while it was too early to tell whether other dealers would imitate Swanson, he welcomed any technique to sell cars in a slow market. "I'm glad somebody is doing great," he said. "We certainly are in favor of anything that, as they say in Detroit, 'moves the Discount giants change pharmacy's face Independents pit service against chains, mail order By LILLIAN ZIER Journal Staff Writer It was an anguishing decision.

Bill Geyer's uncle Art opened Geyer Pharmacy in Ellis in 1923. The business operated continuously at the same location, going through ownership by two other families through the years, until Bill Geyer bought it in 1979. Then came the discount giants Wal- Mart, mart and Dillons only 15 minutes away in Hays. "We're kind of bitter about Geyer that," Geyer said. "Fifty, 70 years ago, we were there building a business.

Then the big discounter comes in. Where were they when the town was building, when the money wasn't there?" And each time one of the aging residents of Ellis died, Geyer's pharmacy lost a faithful customer not to be replaced by someone younger. To make matter worse, insurance companies began encouraging subscribers to send their prescriptions to mail-order pharmacies in other states, he said. "It's painful when your best friend can't trade with you, because they have to send their prescriptions to mail-order places," he said. So on New Year's Eve, Geyer closed his business and went to work at the pharmacy in Stafford.

Independents suffer Pharmacies like Geyer's are no different from any other small retailer, struggling to meet competition from large discount chains, said Jerry Matchett, professor and associate dean of the School of Pharmacy at the University of Kansas. More of the school's graduates are finding jobs at chains for two reasons: There are fewer independent pharmacies, and those that remain are not large enough to hire additional pharmacists, he said. However, the school hasn't changed its curricula. "We're still in the business of producing pharmacists capable of Jim Cram, who operates Jim's Pharmacy at Mowery Clinic in Salina, tells a customer how to use a particular prescription. 5 functioning in any aspect they're employed," Matchett said.

The decline in the number of independent pharmacies is evident in Salina. Jim Cram, who operates Jim's Pharmacy at Mowery Clinic in Salina, said Salina had eight independent pharmacies when he opened his business seven years ago. Now there are three: Jim's, Key Rexall at two locations and Prescription Shop. merged with Low's Drug Store last year, and with Morris Pharmacy before that, said Larry Shaw of Now, five pharmacists work at the shop. "We did it for economic reasons and to better serve the people of Salina," Shaw said.

Cram is far from giving up on independent pharmacies. He said he used to work for a chain, and his boss said a good independent pharmacist was his biggest competition. Efficiency, marketing and location can help an independent compete, he said. Also, he said, independent pharmacists can join a buying group through the Kansas Pharmacists Association. The buying Comparing prescription drug prices i Pharmacy Nebraska mall-order firm Wal-Mart Tenormln $23.39 $25.76 $20.44 $22.00 Generic Tenormln $19.71 $19.76 $17.86 $14.94 Prozak $51.29 $53.54 $49.97 $51.80 Dlabeta $14.36 $14.96 $13.81 $14.55 Tenormln Is a high-blood pressure drug, 50 30-day supply.

Prozac Is an anti-depression drug, 20 30-day supply. Olabeta Is diabetes medication, 5 30-day supply. group, the nation's largest, purchases drugs in bulk at lower prices. Independent pharmacists offer services that chains and mail- order firms often don't, such as charge accounts, delivery and "there's the potential for more personal service," Cram said. Mall-order competition Cram was most critical of the increasing use of mail-order Journal Graphic Fritz Mendall pharmacies, which have managed to work deals with many insurance companies.

Cram doesn't believe consumers save money by using mail-order firms. Some insurance companies offer a fixed price for each prescription ordered from a mail-order pharmacy, rather than the usual co- payment policy. For example, patients would pay $6 for each prescription from a mail-order firm, rather than a 20 percent co- payment. But Cram said that on average, a 20 percent co-payment amounts to only $5 or $6, so consumers don't save. Also, mail-order pharmacies often encourage people to order a 90- day supply, he said.

But the doctor may change the patient's medica- gpn, and then the drug and the money spent on it go to waste. Or they may use more of the medication than they would if they had purchased a smaller supply from a local pharmacist. Other problems exist with mail- ordering, Cram said. For one, patients must wait about five days for their prescriptions. As Geyer put it: "You can be well again, or you can be dead by then." Personal interaction Also, mail-order firms can't provide such services as checking to make sure the dosage and directions are correct, and that the drug is compatible with other drugs the patient uses, Geyer said.

Bob Williams, executive direc- See PHARMACIES, Page 18 Many jobless band together to fight stigmas, find work NEW YORK When you're out of work, you're fighting more than the slow economy. You're up against social attitudes that infect your friends, your associates and your very soul. Americans devalue the jobless, as if everyone who is out of work probably deserves it. Somewhere in our minds lies the illusion that the world is just. Therefore, the logic runs, if you were capable you wouldn't have been fired.

In today's economy, these beliefs are patently untrue. Plant closings, downswings and business failures hit good and mediocre employees alike. Still, many employers look with suspicion on the unemployed. And the unemployed themselves are often overcome with shame and self-blame, as if their predicament were their own fault. To battle these destructive feelings, the jobless (correction: call them "job STAYING AHEAD Jane Bryant Quinn THE WASHINGTON POST are increasingly banding together in support groups.

No one keeps count of their number. But they're springing up everywhere, in churches, clubs and community halls. At Westminster Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, members range from a man who was, until recently, homeless, to an executive fired from a $250,000 job. They open each meeting with a "two-minute drill," which "summarizes who you are professionally, what you've done and what you want to do," says group leader (and my brother) Robert Bryant. "It's what you want people to remember about you, if they mention you to someone else." At a similar group in New York City's Marble Collegiate Church, leader Rosemary Corello announces a handful of job openings, many of them forwarded by people connected with the church.

Is anyone an accountant? A person with international banking experience? An administrative assistant? Some members volunteer to call for details about the positions. What do support groups talk about? How to lick a common problem, like getting past the secretary of somebody you'd like to see. Ways to redesign a resume for today's results-oriented market vice president" doesn't impress any more; you have to sell yourself as a bundle of transferrable skills). Whether anyone knows someone who can open a door at a particular company. Many groups invite speakers outplacement counselors, ministers, psycholo- gists, representatives from the unemployment office.

But mostly, they help themselves by helping each other. If you make a useful call for another group member, you feel more competent and valuable. A good deal of research has been done on the mental state of the unemployed, says Dr. Barrie Greiff, a psychiatrist and co-author of "The Psychosocial Impact of Job Loss." Without doubt, he says, social support relieves your sense of stigma and personal failure. Support groups can't save you from economic deprivation, but they buffer the perception of deprivation, which is a form of salvation in itself.

Almost no research has been done on what happens to the spouses of the unemployed. It appears, however, that their level of personal anxiety may be higher than that of the job- seeker himself. "You feel so isolated and lonely," says a modestly paid teacher who, for 12 was the family's only breadwinner. (Memo to those with jobs: Keep seeing and talking with your unemployed friends.) This particular wife has just started a support group for spouses. If you'd like to start a group yourself, it might help you to see the free outline used at Westminster Presbyterian.

Write to Robert Bryant (still leading the group although now employed as a consulting chief executive at a small firm), 2303 West llth Street, Wilmington, Del. 19805. Enclose a stamped self- addressed business-size envelope. Most support groups are discovered by word of mouth. The only known list of self- help clearinghouses (some of which cover the unemployed) costs $1 plus a self-addressed, stamped envelope, from the National Self- Help Clearinghouse, 25 West 43rd Room 620, New York, N.Y.

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